Democrats launch plan to turn Texas blue

Democrats have eyed the Lone Star State longingly for years. | Reuters

“People understand that it’s going to take a lot of focused resources and a deliberate effort to define the Republican leadership in Texas for what it is, which is failed. Absent that, the hill remains very steep,” Angle said. “The demographics are coming into place and Republicans have created an opportunity … But it’s also doing the hard work and raising the money that it takes.”

Davis — whom multiple Republicans privately described as “scary” to the GOP — agreed that there’s political opportunity for Democrats in Texas but said it remains to be seen how quickly the party can take advantage of it.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“Our issues already are the issues that are reflective of the values of the people in Texas: building a strong public education, creating an opportunity for higher education and making sure that we keep our citizens healthy so that their families are strong and our economy is strong,” Davis told POLITICO. “I’m excited that people are talking about the opportunity for me to do something statewide one day. What I’m smart enough to know is that you can’t decide that’s a good idea for yourself. Instead, the support for that has to generate from under.”

Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker said her party couldn’t afford to wait passively for population change to turn Texas blue. Instead, they should dig in for a longer, harder campaign to make it a swing state.

“We have been waiting in Texas for a very long time for the Latino vote to come into its own and turn the tide. But many of us have decided that we can’t wait for that. We have to do the old-fashioned work of going out and talking to Texans,” said Parker, who didn’t rule out a statewide campaign “when I am done [being] mayor.”

“Do I think we’re going to turn Texas in two years? Probably not. Do I think we can turn Texas in four years? Absolutely, because I think the Republican Party in Texas is going to drive itself off a cliff,” Parker said. “You hear Republicans with rhetoric, literally talking about the jack-booted thugs coming and taking guns out of people’s homes, going door to door. You have legislators who will file, once again, virulently anti-immigrant legislation in the state House.”

Any new national group aimed at building up Texas Democrats would join a small but significant array of in-state organizations developing progressive infrastructure. In addition to the Lone Star Project and the germinal Battleground Texas effort, strategists pointed to the group Be One Texas as a significant player in their comeback effort.

That organization plans to spend heavily across several elections to coordinate action among Democratic interest groups, said Texas strategist Robert Jones, who’s taking over as the group’s CEO next week. Be One Texas will follow the “roundtable” model adopted successfully by Democrats in states such as Colorado and Minnesota, where collaboration between big donors, labor groups, women’s groups and other core Democratic constituencies have powered major gains.

“I think there’s a lot of conversations about Texas right now, looking at the electoral map and how you change the nature of politics in the country,” said Jones. “The state is on track to have 42 electoral votes in the 2020 census, so it has the potential to be a huge player in national politics.”

Ideally, Democrats said, the existing progressive groups there and a new entity would end up “embracing and reinforcing one another.”